Banana Three leads them home in the winter sunshine © Photo Healy Racing
The 5/2 favourite Banana Three landed the claimer for Ger Lyons and Colin Keane.
A son of the recently deceased Dandy Man, the blinkered three-year-old had been runner-up on his three previous starts on the Polytrack. Having sat second, he led turning for home and was soon a couple of lengths clear. Although Autocrat stayed on well under the stands' rail in the closing stages, the winner never really looked in danger and got home by a length in the colours of Sean Jones.
Assistant trainer Shane Lyons said: "Most of all it is great for Sean (Jones) and his two kids James and Edward - Edward is down for breeding him and Sean is our biggest supporter.
"He's a very consistent horse. He'll definitely be claimed with the amount of people that are interested in him.
"We could have run him in the maiden next week and we knew he would be hard beat.
"This is what it is all about and Sean has plenty of horses to come forward, so we have to keep them turning.
"It is our 50th winner of the year, so we are happy with that."
The winner was claimed by Amanda Torrens for 15,000 Euros to be trained by Ross O'Sullivan while third-placed Pachmena was claimed by her trainer Gavin Cromwell for 10,000 Euros.
Quotes from Michael Graham
